Frank Haith Talks NC State

We meet again, Frank Haith, for the next time, for the current time. Haith spoke Thursday about Missouri's matchup with NC State, touching on a number of topics, including T.J. Warren (of course) and his team's short bench at this point. The Tigers only played seven guys their last time out:

"We've got to play some more guys. I would like to play more guys, and I think we will. It just got into that environment that game [against Illinois], I just didn't know if some guys were ready to take that on, but we will. We will play more guys. I want to get to nine. I would love to get to nine, but obviously, eight is the number, if we could get to eight and work through that. But I would love to have nine guys play at some point in the game."

Mizzou ranks 325th in bench minutes so far this year. The Tigers do have options, but as Haith alludes to here, there's a lot of inexperience among them.

He also talked about his background in North Carolina:

It's back where my roots are at, and ... growing up in North Carolina with the ACC, I know the tradition with the ACC in basketball, and obviously, N.C. State is a program - I probably was a fan of all three teams at one point. Never Wake Forest probably but Duke, Carolina and N.C. State at some point in time during my childhood. I got into many, many fights with whatever team you were pulling for and all that stuff during my childhood.

You hear that, Wake Forest? NEVER YOU. Never you. Never you forever. (Sorry, Wake Forest.)

On a side note, I wonder how typical Haith's experience is with the kids these days. I'm guessing that given the consistency of Duke and UNC in the modern era, plus NC State's relative obscurity over the last 20+ years, the dividing lines are more concrete. Back in the 70s and early 80s I could see how one might be inclined to flip around with the ebbs and flows of each program.